Under the PM Kisan Nidhi Samman scheme, over 120 mn farmers will be receiving Rs 6K in 3 instalments directly into their Aadhaar-linked back a/c.

The number of total authentications done by people using an Aadhaar had dropped to a year’s low.

A new TV and radio campaign on Aadhaar is expected to include the pitch that having an Aadhaar number will benefit crores of farmers spread across the country as they can get their yearly assistance of Rs 6,000 under PM Kisan Nidhi Samman Scheme directly into their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts.

The campaign, with mini-films and audio spots, will also focus on how Aadhaar is making filing Income Tax Returns (ITR) easier to “verify your ITR in a jiffy” and doing away with the need to send a physical copy to the processing centre in Bengaluru. This is the brief given for the campaign to prospective bidders this year after Aadhaar was made non-compulsory for a host of services after a Supreme Court order and limited only to government subsidies and services.

The government had decided to accept Aadhaar enrolment number for giving out the first instalment under the PM Kisan Nidhi Samman scheme while an Aadhaar number shall be compulsory for release of 2nd instalment. The Union Cabinet on February 28 relaxed conditions to made Aadhaar seeding of the beneficiaries' data compulsory only from the third instalment so as to not cause discontent among farmers since the seeding required biometric authentication.

Under the PM Kisan Nidhi Samman scheme, over 120 million farmers will be receiving Rs 6000 in three instalments directly into their Aadhaar-linked back accounts – a condition that government believes will help it cut on frauds and pilferage in the biggest farmer scheme till date. The government has similarly made Aadhaar compulsory for availing medical insurance services under the PM-JAY Ayushman Bharat scheme to eliminate frauds or misappropriation attempts.

The number of total authentications done by people using an Aadhaar had dropped to a year’s low last November of just 824 million following the SC order on September 26, 2018 but have since picked up again with 964 million authentications in January this year and 868 million last month, as per the online dashboard of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). This shows people are back to using Aadhaar for a host of services, officials claim.

This seems to have prompted the government to come out with an ordinance on February 28 which allows the voluntary use of Aadhaar number in physical or electronic form by authentication or offline verification with the consent of Aadhaar number holder and for authentication on voluntary basis as acceptable KYC document under the Telegraph Act, 1885 and the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002. A bill on the same could not be passed in the Rajya Sabha.